Video Poker: Origins and Variants

Video poker is a game usually dismissed by “real” poker players as “just another game of chance”. They are right, but only in part. Video poker is basically the single-player variant of Five Card Draw, a popular (and old) poker variant. It has been introduced as a way for casinos to attract poker players to their premises, but it has become popular among other players as well, thanks to its fast pace and a good outlook for profits.

Origins

Few people know that the first poker machine was created years before Charles Fey built his first one-armed bandit, the Liberty Bell. Created by Sittman and Pitt of Brooklyn, New York in 1891, the poker machine was highly popular among players, but it had one major shortcoming: due to the high number of potential winning combinations, the game couldn’t make an automated payout. Sittman and Pitt’s poker machine is widely considered the precursor of the modern slot machine.

The idea of a poker machine returned to focus in the 1970s when the advancement of computers allowed a virtual – video – poker machine to be introduced. The first commercial model was launched by SIRCOMA (later evolving into IGT, one of the largest gaming machine manufacturers of the industry) in 1979. During the 1980s, video poker became popular at land-based casinos. In the mid-1990s, when online casinos were introduced, they made it to the internet as well.

Variants

If you decide to play video poker games at Royal Vegas Canada, you’ll see that it has tens of variants of the game ready to be tried. Video poker has several variants, with slight variations on the rules. Among the many versions you can try at the Royal Vegas Casino, you’ll find the most popular one, preferred by most players: Deuces Wild. This variant uses twos (deuces) as Wild cards, standing in for any other card in a hand. Deuces Wild only pays out for a pair of Jacks or above.

Among the many versions of the game available at the Royal Vegas Casino, you’ll find several where you can play more than one hands at the same time. Playing them is simple: an initial hand is dealt, cards are held, but when they are discarded, each hand gets dealt from a different deck. This makes the game more exciting, and often more profitable as well.

Many variants of the game available at the Royal Vegas Casino come with bonuses to be won, too. Depending on the variant, these games can pay out higher values, or extra bonuses, for certain combinations of cards – usually for four Deuces, four Aces, or other similar hands.